This week HP announced the Envy 133 and details surfaced surrounding the Dell E and E Slim. These new notebooks from HP and Dell will each ship with an embedded Linux environment, which the manufacturers have dubbed Voodoo IOS and BlackTop, respectively. Both Linux environments appear to be quite similar in concept and similar to the instant-on SplashTop environment for notebooks, PCs, and motherboards, which DeviceVM Inc had pioneered and then ultimately introduced last year. In this article we have more information on HP's Voodoo IOS and Dell's BlackTop and whether they're actually using SplashTop for powering the system or have developed their own proprietary distributions.

It's not clear to me but does this mean that you can run the laptop fully from 'splashtop' ie. the Vista installation is redundant?

06-15-2008, 02:21 PM

Svartalf

Quote:

Originally Posted by fsando

It's not clear to me but does this mean that you can run the laptop fully from 'splashtop' ie. the Vista installation is redundant?

For most of what people are using their PCs and Laptops for, largely, yes.

06-15-2008, 02:28 PM

deanjo

I would really like to see someone take advantage of this technology, wipe out splashtop and use it for grub and /boot for a regular distro.

06-15-2008, 02:33 PM

fsando

Quote:

Originally Posted by Svartalf

For most of what people are using their PCs and Laptops for, largely, yes.

Does it mean that I can install all my usual programs in the splashtop environment?

It seems a bit like 'to good to be true' that you can have a system that starts in a matter of a few seconds and still is all a normal system would be.

06-15-2008, 02:55 PM

deanjo

Quote:

Originally Posted by fsando

Does it mean that I can install all my usual programs in the splashtop environment?

It seems a bit like 'to good to be true' that you can have a system that starts in a matter of a few seconds and still is all a normal system would be.

No it just has some basic preinstalled applications such as a webbrowser, Skype, and basic file downloads to a USB device.

06-15-2008, 03:14 PM

fsando

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanjo

No it just has some basic preinstalled applications such as a webbrowser, Skype, and basic file downloads to a USB device.

Ahh, I see :( . I'd like to have one of those though I guess chances are that the hardware is not fully supported under linux until next year - with a bit of luck ;)

06-16-2008, 10:30 AM

Kano

I would like to try splashtop, but the boards with it are too expensive for me (I would try em if somebody wants to send it to me). Maybe the cheaper solutions which require an install on hd are more easy to customize to add some needed things like a link to a console app and maybe unzip. Without a console window I can not be happy with a linux system - then it can boot in 5 s or faster thats not what I like ;)